The Fatal Frails

CHAPTER II

“Dechant was the one?” Lieutenant Dameron asked incredulously. He recovered immediately. “I'm sorry your — ah-mission is over before it really began, Your Eminence.”

“I wouldn't like to think so,” the cardinal said in obvious disappointment. “After the raising of my hopes, I wouldn't-”

Johnny cut in promptly as the big man's voice died away. “That's good enough for me. Let's you 'n me take a walk out've this righteous atmosphere, Kiki. You fill me in. I'll find somethin' to hang a nail in, an' we'll go from there.”

“Now just a minute-” Lieutenant Dameron glared across the desk.

“First, a little story,” the cardinal said. “When we've all heard it, perhaps it will be clear there's nothing to be done. Joseph knows the basic facts.” Joseph didn't look as though the knowledge agreed with him, Johnny thought. “The entire story is a long one, and unnecessary. We can conveniently begin at a time in the spring of 1948, when a valuable piece of church property stolen by the importer Dechant in Florence, Italy in 1944 was brought to this country from Paris.”

The trained speaking voice continued, bell-clear. “It was sold in this country by Dechant to a wealthy collector, a man by the name of August Hegel. The amount paid was considerably more than the dollars-and-cents value, so Hegel knew what he was buying.” The cardinal smiled faintly. “I'm given to understand there are collectors like that.”

“If it's as easy as gettin' to this Hegel-” Johnny began, then pulled up at Dameron's snort.

“August Hegel is dead,” the cardinal supplied gravely. “Of natural causes. He was an old man. The point that presently concerns us about him is that he left his entire I collection to the Leland Stafford Museum, a city-administered institution.”

Johnny glanced at the silent lieutenant. “You just rubbed my nose in the spot where the smell of Joe's cold feet started, Kiki. Every damn slingshot politician in this town's on the board of governors of that place. Joe couldn't see stickin' his highly developed political nose into that kind of flytrap for you, right?”

“You're prejudging,” the cardinal warned. “It's not that simple. For one thing, the museum doesn't have the collection yet. The will is being contested by the nephews and nieces of the childless Hegel, and the matter is in the probate courts.”

“Now you lost me again,” Johnny complained. “You might have to wait a little longer, but when all the whereases are gatherin' dust, don't you figure to recover either from the museum or the heirs, whichever winds up with it?”

“There is another complication.” The cardinal smiled as 5i Johnny threw up his hands. “The stolen property is a monstrance, eighteen inches high, one of six exquisitely jeweled masterpieces made in the thirteenth century for the private chapels of six of the ruling princes of Italy. They were gifts from Pope Clement. One is in Milan, in the possession of the titled family whose ancestors acquired it. One was given to the Cathedral Salveggi in 1520. It is this one that was stolen. Early in the period of the intervening five hundred years since they were fashioned by the leading artisan of his day, the remaining four disappeared.”

“So Hegel's could be one of the missing four?”

“It could be so claimed. It would not be true.” The churchman's voice was rocklike. “I've traced this carefully.”

“You haven't even gotten to the point yet,” Lieutenant Dameron inserted wearily.

“Forgive me,” the cardinal apologized. “I naturally made representations both to the board of governors of the museum and to the administrator of the Hegel estate. From the museum I received a reply that if, as and when the Hegel collection actually became museum property, the matter would have their most careful attention. I'll admit I've had responses upon which I've looked with more favor, but it was from the Hegel administrator that I received my real shock. This man is a Federal judge, a man of probity, and he's assured me that the monstrance was not part of the collection turned over to him to be vault-stored pending court settlement of its disposition. He verified that it had been included in Hegel's private catalogue, but that it, along with two or three of the smaller pieces, had never been found.”

“And His Eminence thinks that after Hegel's death Dechant stole it back again,” the lieutenant said harshly.

“I'm convinced of it,” the cardinal said seriously. “De-chant was, if not a trusted aid, a valued assistant in the continuing search for new acquisitions for August Hegel's collection. He had access to it as few men did. Dechant stole it to resell it. This whole affair first came to my attention sixty days ago, when an art dealer in Lisbon, Portugal, knowing my interest, called to tell me that a monstrance had been offered to him for purchase. He thought it had to be a facsimile. We know now that it didn't. The one in Milan is still there. Do you doubt that the one offered in Lisbon was Hegel's?”

“The man we'd have to ask that is dead by his own hand,” Lieutenant Dameron said exasperatedly.

“Unfortunately,” the cardinal admitted. “But I wouldn't like to have to accept a complete dead end.” His eyes went to Johnny. “I feel responsible. I lost the monstrance. When Florence was declared an open city in the summer of 1944, I ordered the monstrance moved from a perfectly safe hiding place in southern Italy and sent to the Villa Montagnana on the outskirts of Florence. The owner was a friend of mine, and his home was a deposit for some of the greatest art the world has ever seen.” The huge man shrugged. “The open-city designation not only was not respected, but wholesale looting took place in the days before the city was liberated. Over three hundred paintings hidden at Montagnana were taken. And the monstrance. You can understand my concern, and the burgeoning of my hopes recently after this long interval. It's because in the special circumstances Joseph seemed to feel he could do nothing that I had him call you, Johnny. Hoping-”

“Your Eminence.” Suppressed anger crackled in the lieutenant's tone. “If somebody walked through that door this minute and laid the thing on my desk, I'd have to turn it over to the estate administrator. Is that what you want?”

“On advice of counsel, don't answer that, Kiki,” Johnny said cheerfully. He looked from the big man in the flowing robes to the scowling lieutenant. “I'll carry the ball, Joe. You're outta the game.”

The frosty eyes narrowed. “Now look, Johnny-”

“It doesn't call for the official touch, right? That's your position?” Johnny outstared the apple-cheeked man's silence. “Okay. They don't come any more unofficial 'n me. I'll just kind of soft-shoe around an' lean easy on a few people.” He thought fleetingly of the red-haired Gloria Philips. “I could even get to like the idea.”

“I want no trouble from you,” the lieutenant warned. His voice rose. “I want no-”

“Sure, Joe, sure,” Johnny interrupted soothingly. “All you want is the world with a fence around it. As usual.” He turned to the cardinal. “Where can I reach you, Kiki?”

“At the Rosario.” The big man looked as though he were enjoying himself.

“I'll be on the phone to you presently.”

“Johnny!”

On his way to the door Johnny lifted a hand in mute acknowledgment of the lieutenant's angry bellowing of his name.

He closed the door firmly from the outside.

Johnny grabbed a robe at the familiar tap on the door. Sally slipped in from the corridor as he opened the door, and at once threw her arms about herself to hug her slim figure tightly. “Say, man, I don't have to come up here to get chilblains,” she protested, marched to the window and closed it.

“Fresh air's good for you,” he said from right behind her, and the big arms enfolded her as she turned.

Sally shivered at the combination of the chill in the room and the husky resonance in her ear. “You and your polar-bear blood,” she said resignedly. A small hand darted upward and sharply tweaked the chest hair exposed by the loosely belted robe. “We don't all carry our own rugs around with us, you know.”

“Maybe we could graft a few yards onto you, ma?”

“I'm doing nicely without, thanks.” She pushed him gently away, turned back to the window and drew the shade. “There's too much light in here.”

“You could find yourself outvoted on that. Two hundred thirty-eight pounds to ninety-eight.”

She ignored him grandly. “Hop into the bed and warm up those sheets,” she commanded. Her nimble fingers flew over clothes fastenings. “I've got goose bumps already.”

“I'll massage 'em, ma. Individually.” Johnny threw off the robe, turned down the bed and climbed in. He turned barely in time, holding up the covers to admit the silver arrow that flashed across the room. Sally, squealing at the touch of the icy sheets on her bare flesh, scrambled up on top of Johnny, elbows and knees thrashing. “Goddlemighty, I might's well be in bed with a centipede,” he grunted.

“Ooh, but you're the warmest thing,” she murmured, wriggling along his length. She sighed in satisfaction. “Let me soak up a little heat first.”

Silently the hard hands reached down over her and glided over the velvety expanse of slender back and not-quite-boyish behind. Sally's initial rapid breathing slowed and quieted, then once more began to accelerate. The big hands stroked delicately, patted and teased. And paused. “That a goose bump, ma?”

“Stop it!” she ordered, and rolled off the massive chest.

“No complaints about the sheets now?”

“Don't-talk-” she murmured huskily. The brown eyes were enormous. “You're so-good for me. You're-oh!”

“What was that last remark, ma?”

“Mmmmm!”

Johnny eased back down under the covers and handed Sally one of the cigarettes he'd lighted. The brown eyes examined his face. “You definitely bring out the worst in me, man,” she complained.

“Let's keep it like that, ma. I couldn't handle the best.”

“That's not what I meant!” A sharp-knuckled little fist thumped against his ribs for emphasis. “I'm shameless. I have no pride.”

“Praise Allah.” He grabbed for the small hand as it punched him again. “For the small economy size, ma, you pay off at a hundred cents on the dollar.”

She stubbed out her cigarette after two quick drags, snuggled down alongside him for a moment, then half sat up with a sigh. “I've got to get out of here.” She winced at the onslaught of room temperature on her bare shoulders. “Goose bumps, here I come again.”

“It's warmer in the bathroom, ma.”

“I'll be a stalagmite before I make it,” she gloomed. She descended under the covers again. “I haven't any will power, Johnny. You'll have to push me out.”

“Why, sure. Glad to oblige.” He pinched her, and Sally bounded upright in the bed with a shrill yip. He pinched her again, strategically, and she thumped to the floor, trailing covers. She bounded erect with a stifled yell at the impact of the cold, whizzed across the room to scoop up her clothes and zoomed into the bathroom.

“I'm coming back with the biggest thing I can find full of water,” she announced from the doorway.

“You better find yourself a suit of armor before you try it,” he warned her, and she ran out her tongue at him before she closed the door. Johnny leaned back in the bed and folded his hands beneath his head. He stretched luxuriantly, arching his chest until he heard a muscle in his back pop protestingly. The quicksilver moments in life made all the rest of it worth-while. A man didn't have to be a philosopher to appreciate them. A man just had to be alive.

He was scowling up at the ceiling when Sally emerged from the bathroom, dressed. He rolled up on an elbow to look at her. “You wouldn't happen to remember the names of any of Claude Dechant's steady telephone customers, would you?” he began abruptly. “People he called a lot?”

“I can see you never heard Mr. Dechant make a telephone call,” Sally said. “His calls might as well have been in Morse code. First names only, and a twenty-second call was overtime for him. He'd call Max, or Jack, or Madeleine, or Harry, or Gloria, or Jules, or Ernest, and he'd say: 'I'll meet you at such-and-such a place.' And hang up. Once in a while someone would try to say something to him, and he'd cut them right off. 'Tell me when you see me,' he'd say. He could be really nasty on the phone.”

“A Gloria I know,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “An Ernest, too. Reel off the rest of 'em for me again, ma.”

“Max,” she repeated. “Madeleine. Harry. Jack. Jules.” She thought a moment. “That's the crop, I think.” She came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why are you interested?”

“Friend of mine was askin',” he replied vaguely.

“Asking what?” She jogged his elbow at his silence. “Asking what, Johnny? What are you getting into now?”

“I have to be gettin' into something?”

“I know you, buster. Too well I know you.” She stood up from the bed. “I'll siphon you later. I've got to run. Please stay out of trouble?”

He grunted disparagingly as she blew him a kiss from the door.

Johnny ran lightly up the indented stone steps of the station house in the warming sunlight. The first person he ran into in the long corridor was Detective James Rogers. Johnny drew him aside. “That redhead over at the place last night, Jimmy. Where's she work?”

“You wouldn't rather have her home phone?” Detective Rogers ran an appraising eye over Johnny's gray slacks, maroon sport shirt and tan jacket. “So seldom I see you out of uniform it's a wonder I recognized you. You going courting?”

“In all that piece of jazz I didn't seem to catch the address, Jimmy.”

The sandy-haired man looked bleak. “No information, Johnny,” he said brusquely.

Johnny bristled. “What the hell you mean, 'no information'?”

“You came over here last night and ruffled the man's fur. I'm giving you the payoff. Cuneo and I got the word. For Killain: nothing.”

“Don't work too hard at bein' as stupid as your boss,” Johnny told him in heat. “I know Faulkner's a lawyer. If I look him up in the book an' go over to his office, how long you think I've got to hold him by his heels out the window before he tells me where I can find the girl?” He grinned at the detective's level stare. “But I'm always in favor of the short cut. I'll trade with you, Jimmy. You give me the address, an' I'll tell you somethin' I forgot over at the place last night.”

“Why does there always seem to be something you forget?”

“Cynicism ill becomes you, boy. We got a deal?” Silently Rogers took his notebook from his pocket and flipped pages. He stared off down the corridor as Johnny squinted at the opened page. “Spandau Watch Company,” Johnny murmured. “Room Eighteen-oh-eight, Two-twenty-two Maiden Lane.” His grin renewed itself. “Nine will get you five an' your nine back, Jimmy, that the gal's no maiden.”

“You shock me.” The notebook closed with a snap. “So what did I buy?”

Johnny ran through for him quickly Claude Dechant's reaction to the one letter in the stack of mail. “When he came in that front door I'll bet he didn't have any more idea of jumpin' overboard than you do right now. He didn't get any phone calls, either. Was I you, I'd take a look for that letter.”

Rogers nodded grudgingly. “We'll look. Not that it'll make any difference.” He looked at Johnny. “What'd you do to the man last night to get him up on his ear?”

“He's just a bleedin' heart. We was still speakin' when I left here. He must've had a bad dream.”

“If he did, you were in it, in Technicolor. As a direct result of which, I'm taking an official interest in you.”

“Official, Jimmy?”

Detective Rogers paused as though mentally reviewing his orders. “Perhaps not official,” he conceded. “But an interest.”

“Should I move a spare cot into my room for you?”

“Never mind trying to be a bigger wise guy than nature made you, either.”

“The redhead an' the lawyer showed yet?”

“Left twenty minutes ago,” Rogers announced with satisfaction.

Johnny glanced up and down the bustling corridor. “Where's your crabby partner, Cuneo? Already out on the corner waitin' for me to leave so he can tail me?”

The sandy-haired man eyed Johnny coldly. “My partner's minding his own business, which is more than I can say for some people I know.” Detective Ted Cuneo, who had a phobia about Johnny Killain, was a sallow-faced six-footer with large-pupiled pop eyes.

“You guys are as transparent as glass, Jimmy.”

“You're not so damn opaque yourself.”

“Clear-As-Crystal Killain, they call me,” Johnny agreed. “I guess I should sign that statement now. I wouldn't want Ted to get chilled standin' around waitin' for me.”

He moved up the corridor, ignoring Rogers' stare.

Johnny had covered the best part of three blocks outside, and had just begun to think himself mistaken about Ted Cuneo's activities, when he suddenly picked out the tall detective's lean figure across the street. Johnny stopped and waved. “Hey, Cuneo! Come on over!” Detective Cuneo crossed the street after an irresolute moment. He stepped up on the curb and looked Johnny up and down balefully. Two bright red spots bloomed in the saffron features. “How about splittin' the cab fare downtown?” Johnny asked him. “I like to keep down expenses.”

“Wise guy,” the tall man gritted. “A continental wise guy.”

“No originality,” Johnny said sadly. “Rogers already used up that line. Well, you comin'?”

“I'll just call that bluff,” the detective decided after a moment's debate with himself. Johnny lifted his arm to a cab that darted into the curb.

“Two-twenty-two Maiden Lane,” Johnny told the driver as he preceded Cuneo into the back seat.

The tall man jerked to a stop halfway in. “Where'd you get that address?” he demanded.

“From the lawyer, Faulkner,” Johnny said innocently. “Why? You guys forget to muzzle him?”

Cuneo pulled himself in the balance of the way. He sat in compressed-lip silence the entire trip. In the lobby of the office building he watched, his mouth a thin, hard line, as Johnny gravely ran a finger down the “S's” on the wall directory. “Spandau,” Johnny said aloud. “Eighteen-oh-eight.”

“And just what do you think you're going to do up there?” Cuneo's voice was acid-tipped, but Johnny thought he detected a note of uneasiness in it, too.

“Who the hell knows?” Johnny responded. “I play these things better by ear. You still aboard? Let's go.” Cuneo followed stubbornly to the elevators, but hesitated just outside as Johnny stepped on. Johnny needled him. “Come on, man. You think I got time to wait while you thumb through the manual lookin' for a paragraph to cover you? The man said report, didn't he? How the hell 're you gonna report if you're not with me?”

Ted Cuneo burst onto the elevator as though goosed from behind. The large-pupiled eyes were narrowed to slits. “Goddam you, Killain, I'll-”

“Temper, temper,” Johnny said soothingly. To himself he thought that about one more jab of the spurs and Detective Cuneo would be out of the saddle completely on this trip.

Johnny was interested to note, beneath the block-lettered Spandau Watch Co. on the frosted glass of 1808, a smaller J. Tremaine, Representative. J. Tremaine. The “Jack” of Dechant's phone calls? Or the “Jules”? Johnny tapped once and entered, with the now obviously reluctant Cuneo still tagging doggedly along.

The redhead from the previous evening looked up inquiringly from behind a neat, small desk. The room was small, too, and a little on the shabby side, Johnny thought. The girl was alone, but the door to an inner office was at her back. Johnny was relieved to discover that he had made no mistake in judgment last night. Even in the less flattering daylight, this was an exceptional specimen of the genus female.

“May I help you, gentlemen?” the girl asked as Cuneo remained a discreet half pace behind Johnny.

“Sure you can, Gloria,” Johnny told her. He leaned down over her desk, resting his weight on his big-knuckled hands. Gloria Philips glanced fleetingly at the hands, longer at the breadth of chest and shoulders above them, longer still at the rough-hewn, craggy features thirty-six inches from her own. “Tremaine around?”

“Who wishes-” The redhead nodded to herself. “I place you now. You were in the room last night when we found Claude.” She inspected Johnny coolly from beneath long lashes. “You have business with Mr. Tremaine?”

“Oh, boy, do I have business!” Johnny replied cheerfully.

Her eyes slid off to Cuneo. “And this one?”

“Oh, he's just a cop,” Johnny said disparagingly. “Just taggin' along. I can't get rid of him.”

“A policeman? Really?” Gloria Philips' stare banked off the red-faced Cuneo back to Johnny. “Mr. Tremaine is unavailable right now. If you could give me some idea of the nature of your business… I'm Mr. Tremaine's secretary.”

“Well, I guess if you're his secretary it's all right,” Johnny allowed grudgingly. “I come over here to blackmail him.” Beside Johnny, Detective Cuneo blanched.

“You're joking, of course,” the girl said finally.

“Jokin'?” Johnny repeated. “I been livin' in Claude Dechant's pocket for ten years, little sister. You don't think that qualifies me?”

The redhead considered this for five seconds before her fascinated stare returned to Cuneo. “And in the presence of the police you mention blackmail of Mr. Tremaine?”

Ted Cuneo emitted a strangled sound. His hand opened and closed at his sides. “Where's a phone?” he blared.

“Where's a goddam phone? Not that thing!” he shouted hoarsely at Gloria Philips as she pushed the phone on her desk toward him. “A pay phone!”

“None closer than the lobby, I'm afraid,” she told him.

He whirled to the door. From its threshold he leveled a finger at Johnny. “I'll get you for this, you sonofabitch! If Dameron just gives me the word, I'll-” He growled inarticulately, and the door shivered from the force with which he slammed it.

Gloria Philips was looking up at Johnny pensively when he turned back to her desk. “A man like you hasn't always worked in a hotel, has he?” she asked.

She's stalling, he thought instantly. Her hands were motionless on the desk top. Buzzer under her foot, probably. Act II was due to be coming up any second now. He moved a casual step closer to her desk. “Worked? Hell, I worked at everything. I was rollin' furniture vans over the mountains between L.A. an' Houston before I was eighteen. Jimmy-diesels. Monsters. Load a mansion in one. We did, many a time. Like the time I moved the whorehouse into Silver City. Rainin' like the sun 'd gone out of style, an'-”

The door behind Gloria Philips was flung open, and a big man charged through it with so much energy that Johnny wondered why he had bothered to turn the knob. “What is it, Gloria?” the man demanded. He had a heavy, good-looking head set squarely on solid shoulders.

The redhead released a spatter of rapid-fire French. “This maniac speaks of blackmail, Jules. He was here with another whom he said was of the police and who has now gone to telephone. I don't understand the relationship; they were unfriendly, but the other truly looked of the police. This one works at the hotel where Claude died. Perhaps there is-”

Johnny leaned down over her desk again and knuckle-rapped it sharply for attention. “Un de ces jours tu prendras mon cul pour une tasse du cafe,” he said energetically. “Maybe today, eh? Why guess, when I'd be happy to tell you?”

Jules Tremaine flexed his arms and advanced deliberately from his open doorway around the end of the girl's desk. “Jules,” Gloria Philips said quietly. “Look at the neck.”

The big man looked. He didn't appear alarmed, but he halted, a thoughtful look on his handsome face.

“Thank the lady for doin' you a big favor, Jules,” Johnny said softly, coming down off the balls of his feet.

Jules Tremaine looked him up and down impersonally, then jerked his head at the doorway behind him. “Inside,” he said curtly. “We can talk in there.”

“That's the specific idea,” Johnny told him. He looked down at Gloria Philips. “You, too, little sister. I like you near me.”

He followed them into the inner office.